Jubbaland bans growing of tobacco in southern Somalia

Somalia’s southern State has imposed total ban on the growing of tobacco in the region amid Somalia’s southern regions have in the past decade seen an increase in the number of tobacco growers.

Jubbaland minister for security, Abdirashid Janan said to ban tobacco growing in Jubbaland is being considered as one effective measure in their tobacco control campaign.

“We have banned the growing of tobacco and we allow those who grew it last season to harvest it this time only and stop growing tobacco once and for all,   ”said Janan.

The ban comes five years after Al-shabaab banned smoking cigarettes and chewing khat, a leafy narcotic from the locals under its control.

In 2011, before Al-Shabaab was ousted from the capital city, Mogadishu,  the group banned smoking cigarettes from most of the southern and central parts of the country which were then under their control.

Somalia which is trying to bounce back on its feet after more than two decades of anarchy, annually spends Millions of US dollars on the importation of cigarette from mainly Kenya while some people consume unprocessed tobacco which is manually ground into powder.